Teaching for learning: design and delivery of community college courses

Community College Enterprise, The, Spring 2003 by Major, Howard, Taylor, Debbie

Scope and sequence

A curriculum typically consists of a series of increasingly advanced courses. Ideally, the overall curriculum will be planned so that all critical outcomes needed by stakeholders are addressed somewhere in the curriculum and that the sequence of outcomes is appropriate for learners to achieve increasingly complex levels of learning. If one outcome is dependant on another, the scope and sequence of the curriculum must ensure that the appropriate "basic" outcome occurs in the curriculum before the "advanced" outcome. Thus, instructors at various levels of the curriculum should meet periodically to ensure that the scope and sequence of the curriculum are logical and inclusive with no gaps or unnecessary redundancy. Elementary school teachers, middle school teachers, high school teachers and college instructors who teach the same content areas could collaborate to establish scope, sequence, and outcomes of the curriculum. Since such meetings rarely happen gaps and unnecessary redundancy exist in the K-20 curriculum and therefore students are often unnecessarily frustrated or bored.

Board mandates

At times, the governing board of a school district or a college feels strongly that certain learning outcomes must be addressed in the curriculum. In these instances, the Board of Education (or Trustees) may mandate inclusion (or exclusion) of particular outcomes. When boards mandate a core curriculum designed to ensure that all program completers have certain core competencies, such competencies must be addressed in the curriculum.

State and national guidelines

Typically, states mandate certain curriculum elements. In Michigan, the State Board of Education publishes the Michigan Curriculum Frame-work, essentially a list of required learning outcomes expected in grades K-12. Attainment of those outcomes is measured with content-specific assessment instruments developed by the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) in conjunction with local school districts. Likely, the U.S. Department of Education will produce (and assess attainment of) a similar list of learning outcomes as minimum "core competencies" expected of schools and students nationwide. Colleges typically experience less intervention from state and national agencies over learning outcomes, but the situation can change at any time.

Referent situations

Finally, it is critical to consider how skills learned in a course will be applied in the "real world." Such consideration can help determine the level of learning necessary. A reality check uses a "referent" situation to guide instructors' decisions about standards of excellence. For example, if a course or program of study is occupational and thus performance-focused, there may be little perceived reason for a student to learn the "history" of the field. If the employer is paying for the course or program, this may be viewed as a waste of time. Employers typically want to pay for skills, not conceptual knowledge that does not directly contribute to those skills.